Bots2ReC

Robots that remove health risks The harmful effects of asbestos inhalation are well-known, yet the material is still present in many locations at potentially hazardous levels. The Bots2ReC project aims to develop a robotic system for the automated removal of asbestos without exposing workers to health risks, as Professor Burkhard Corves and Tim Detert explain The adverse health effects of asbestos exposure are well-documented, with inhalation of the fibers known to cause several serious illnesses, yet the material is still present in many locations, for example private flats, public buildings and offices, which can represent a risk to health.

Manually removing asbestos when these sites are later re-developed or refurbished leaves workers exposed to potentially hazardous levels of the material, so researchers in the Bots2ReC project are working to develop an alternative solution.

“The aim of the project is to validate a process for the automated removal of asbestos from a rehabilitation site using a robotic system. We want to be able to remove asbestos from a site without exposing workers to hazardous levels,” explains Professor Burkhard Corves, the project’s Principal Investigator. This approach would also be more efficient than manually removing asbestos. “It’s very time-consuming for a worker to get in and out of protective clothing, then there are also limits on the hours they can work,” points out Professor Corves.

A robot by contrast could be operated on a site for 24 hours a day, with only relatively limited involvement from an on-site operator, greatly improving efficiency. The project aims to develop a robotic system capable of removing asbestos from sites where apartments are being refurbished in line with modern standards. “We’re mainly interested in the refurbishment jobs, on what we call rehabilitation sites,” says Tim Detert, the Scientific Project Manager. In this type of situation, asbestos needs to be thoroughly stripped out, from plaster, tiles, and any other parts of the site where it was previously used.

“The standard procedure is to thoroughly look through an apartment. The professionals know from experience where asbestos is most likely to be, such as under the tiles or in plaster, or on the floor. They identify all these different areas in the apartment, and the presence of asbestos in the material is checked. Then the material is removed before refurbishment begins,” outlines Detert.

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Scenario sketch of the robotic system and removal process.

Robotic system The robotic system being developed in the project is designed to offer an effective, reliable and thorough method of removing asbestos. The Bots2ReC system is comprised of multiple units, each consisting of a mobile platform and robotic arm with an abrasive tool. “The idea is to use technology to grind the material down into small particles,” explains Professor Corves. An aspiration unit is then used to remove the asbestos.

“It’s basically a big vacuum cleaner, with

This task could be on the floor, in the ceiling, or several other points inbetween, which is an important considerations in terms of the design of the robot. The robot needs to able to reach down to the floor and also up into the air, to a height of around 3 metres, while researchers are also aware of likely operational space constraints within rehabilitation sites.

“These apartments may have small, narrow corridors and tight corners,” explains Professor Corves. The robot has

The aim of the project is to validate

a process for the automated removal of asbestos from a rehabilitation site using a robotic system. We want to be able to remove asbestos from a site without exposing workers to hazardous levels very good dust protection and a filtering system. The robotic system puts the asbestos into a bag using a certified filtering system, which is then sealed, before being removed manually later on and decontaminated,” says Detert. “The idea is to have an operator close to the site to control the robotic system, using an interface and a camera sensor signal. The operator will allocate an asbestos removal task on a semantic map that is generated automatically for the particular rehabilitation site.”

been designed to operate in this type of environment, balancing key considerations around performance, weight and the reach of the robotic arm. “We knew we had to adapt to these constraints, and that was at the forefront of our thinking from the early stages of the project. This was one of the reasons we decided against using a standard robot arm,” continues Professor Corves. “The complete unit has a very small footprint not only in terms of geometry, but also in terms of weight.”

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Automated process The robot will always work on pre-defined jobs specified by the operator, such as the grinding of a certain segment of wall, or the removal of tiles from a specific location. Once the robot has started on the particular job, there is regular feedback between the operator and the robot, to help make sure the contaminated material has been fully removed. “This is a kind of double check, as the operator is far better at recognising the wider environmental situation and the removal of material. The final and full robustness of the process comes from the feedback from the user to the robot, which helps with decisionmaking,” explains Detert. “The robot can then start removing asbestos on its own, as it knows where the wall is.”

The movement of the robot within a refurbishment site is another important consideration, as asbestos may have been used in multiple locations across different floors. The robot is designed to move between floors using the elevator, a process which is controlled by a teleoperator, again improving efficiency. “The gross weight of the robot has been limited to the maximum load that could be carried by an elevator,” says Professor Corves. The longer-term goal is to apply this type of system more widely on rehabilitation and indoor construction sites, so alongside developing the technology, Detert and his colleagues in the project are also

First version prototype at the Bots2ReC Testing Site.

considering likely use cases and the whole process around how such a robot would be used. “Soon we will start inviting operators to see the system, to operate it, and to give us their feedback,” he outlines.

“We want to learn more about where they might want to intervene or provide feedback for example.”

The primary focus for the project at the moment is on the removal of asbestos, as it’s an area where there is significant scope for efficiency gains, yet this approach could potentially be applied more widely in future to remove other contaminants and for other jobs on construction sites, such as applying new plaster, finegrinding plaster and painting walls. While robotic systems are currently underutilised in construction, Detert believes this will change in future as more sophisticated systems are developed.

“Robotic systems are on the cusp of being more widely applied,” he says. Construction sites are typically very complicated environments, with a lot of different companies working in the same location; on the other hand, contained asbestos rehabilitation sites are relatively straightforward, so represent a good opportunity to introduce robotic systems.

“The economic advantage of using robotic systems on rehabilitation sites is significant, because they are so challenging for manual workers, that’s why they’re a good starting point,” says Detert.

At a glance Full Project Title Robots to Re-Construction (Bots2ReC) Project Objectives The Bots2ReC project aims to develop a robotic system to perform these tasks. The proposed robotic system will consist of multiple robotic units, a central aspiration and energy supply and a central process control system, that allows easy programming and the supervision of the automated process and optional remote control.

Sensor systems will allow the environmental perception of the system and local monitoring of the asbestos-removal-tasks.

Project Funding The project started in February 2016 as an H2020 Innovation Action. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 687593.

Contact Details Project Coordinator, Department of Mechanism Design, Dynamics of Machines and Robotics Kackertstraße 16-18 52072 Aachen T: +49 241 80 95553 E: bots2rec@igm.rwth-aachen.de W: http://www.bots2rec.eu Journal: Construction Robotics, Vol. 1, Issue 1, 2017. ISSN: 2509811X (print version) ISSN: 2509-8780 (electronic version) DOI: 10.1007/s41693-017-0007-1 Title: Bots2ReC: introducing mobile robotic units on construction sites for asbestos rehabilitation “

Tim Detert

Burkhard Corves

Burkhard Corves, a PhD in robotics from RWTH Aachen University is head of the department and has experience both in academia and industry.

Among other duties he is the chairman of the Association of German Engineers (VDI) Advisory Board “Mechanism and Machine Science” and memberof the Executive Council of the International Federation for the Promotion of Mechanism and Machine Science (IFToMM).

Tim Detert is the leader of the robotics and mechatronics group at the department. His research focused on reconfigurable, object-integrative handling technology and self-calibration.

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